This discussion post focuses on structure & change. As of recent years, Facebook and Twitter have entered the spotlight for practices and policies around the way each company handles data privacy. This can be as recent as 2019 and 2020. As data privacy has evolved overtime with new regulations and policies at the state level, what do you think would be the best approach between the two types of change when running a data privacy organization?

Reactive Change: Responding to Unanticipated Problems and Opportunities

Proactive Change: Managing Anticipated Problems and Opportunities

If you were to categorize how Facebook vs Twitter handles data privacy, do they seem to side with reactive change? Or proactive change? 

POSTS

Reem: The world is in continuous state of change, and in order for an organization to be successful long term they must be able to adapt to any change that comes their way. Change for a corporation can be caused by external forces (shareholders, customers, social and political pressure) or by internal forces (human resource concerns). Facebook and Twitter currently are facing an external social pressure to change their data privacy practices and policies. Both corporations have been under fire for their negligence of handing sensitive data of users, and are therefore expected to change their policies. Therefore, any change they choose to implement will be categorized as a reactive change, because they are responding to the unanticipated public outcry of their practices. However, whereas Twitter seems to be learning its lesson and planning for proactive changing its future data privacy polices in order to reestablish trust with their users, Facebook seems content with continuing to handle data privacy concerns with reactive change. When it comes to data privacy, Facebook has a reputation for being negligent until they receive social and political pressure to change their policies. The corporation loves to see how much it can get away with without receiving any backlash. For example, prior to 2011, Facebook continuously falsely claimed that third-party apps on the social media platform were not accessing user personal data. They finally admitted that this was a false claim only when they entered into an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that required Facebook to undergo a privacy evaluation every two years. Their FTC agreement also makes Facebook liable for a $16,000-per-day penalty for violating any of the established data privacy rules(Newcomb,2018). Therefore, it is evident that Facebook is reactively changing their data privacy practices because they are making changes only in response to problems as they arise. Twitter is also guilty of violating the trust of its users with its data privacy practices. According to CNET, in 2018 there was a “massive wave of privacy updated from the tech sector in response to new regulations from the European Union” (Hautala,2018). Twitter was front and center during this wave of data privacy updates, making massive reactive changes to its policies in order to react to the political and social pressure. However, there is hope that Twitter learned its lesson from the backlash. They have future plans to change their privacy policies even more extensively. This would be considered a proactive change because they are now anticipating data privacy problems and making adjustments in order not to repeat their past mistakes. On Twitter’s website it states they are making a, “continued investment in protecting the security and privacy of the people who use our service around the world”(Twitter, 2022).Hautala, L. (2018, April 25). Twitter: We track you to target ADS, stop abuse. CNET. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/twitter-privacy-policy-heres-what-we-do-with-your-data/Kinicki, A., & Soignet, D. B. (2022). Chapter 10. In Management: A practical introduction (10e ed., pp. 451-490). essay, McGraw Hill. Newcomb, A. (n.d.). A timeline of Facebook’s privacy issues – and its responses. NBCNews.com. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/timeline-facebook-s-privacy-issues-its-responses-n859651Twitter. (n.d.). Our continued work to protect your privacy and security. Twitter. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/our-continued-work-to-protect-your-privacy-and-security

John :No matter what line of business one is involved in, change is inevitable. The world is operating at a pace faster than ever with new innovations and ideas. Change can be hard but, what is important is people need to have an understanding that personal adaptability and openness to change will go a long way. There are two types of change one will need to deal with: Proactive and/or Reactive change. As with any organization, business plans are implemented and followed to hopefully lead to success. With these plans come possible opportunities and setbacks. Organizational management will need to take the best approach.             Social media has been the center of how communication takes place today and with that comes privacy concerns. When running a data privacy organization, it is important to have a strategic approach. There is a lot at stake and it should not be taken lightly. Therefore, the organization will need to operate mainly with a proactive approach. With any product idea/innovation, not only should the organization plan for success but also anticipate roadblocks. Users trust their information to be protected and all of that information should be treated as an asset. Majority of the time, problems will arise but anticipating these problems will better position a company to handle rather than being blind sighted.             Facebook and Twitter are among the leaders of social media and there is a lot at stake for each company respectively. Unfortunately, both have had mishaps that have caused setbacks. Data privacy needs to be treated proactively but both organizations took a back seat and have been more reactive; because their primary focus has been on revenue generation. Ever since the launch of Facebook in 2004, they have approximately three billion users (Hall, 2021). With that many users comes a tremendous amount of data privacy responsibility. They have continued to react to events that come forth rather than better executing corporate governance with contingency plans in place. Facebook’s unfortunate moment was during 2017 with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Almost two decades have passed and yet we still hear Facebook’s brand mentioned with data privacy issues. Twitter has also been involved in many privacy issues and was more reactive to change. However, they have done a bit of a better job in executing better operations and putting in place strategic plans to be more reactive to possible issues arising. The company’s privacy policy is better broken down to be understood easier for those who actually want to read it. Overall, both companies continue to operate with a proactive plan. It seems that the benefits outweigh the costs. They are willing to take the risk of being in public view and additional repercussions being handed down because ultimately the revenue generated at the cost of consumer privacy is well worth it for them.  References:Hall, M. (2021, November 9). Facebook. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/FacebookKinicki, A., & Soignet, D. B. (2022). Chapter 10. In Management: A practical introduction (10e ed., pp. 451-490). essay, McGraw Hill. 

Jaguar:The unanticipated problems and opportunities that face Facebook and Twitter online privacy have been due to some data breaches and accounts hacked from being shared or just mishandled. In the past, the use of younger users tends to share accounts because of age privacy issues and concerns. Now Facebook is implementing an I.D. card picture required to upload or a form of way to identify a person creating an account on Facebook making sure it is a real person. Facebook is becoming more strict with the implementation of streams, marketplace, and constant posts on someone’s virtual wall bulletin board self personalized by them to better express and cultivate an audience or like minds that think alike to build something positive. A change in society can be led by an online format thinking that can be used in real life to hopefully survive or form a sense of familiarity with users online. Every day each user can be the same, but face different challenges and moods may be altered due to the environment. There can only be a reactive change and response to these account’s usage, as many future users may be underage and may want to see if worth using Facebook technology than they will as soon as they are the age because of their new I.D. requirement and age limit to keep things safe and this means account security as well. The proactive and managing problems are accounts can be hacked from users and spread malicious blue links that can cause problems for users if it is clicked. With the recent updates on the user interfaces, newer users may have a hard time exploring and making it net user friendly. “Facebook has roughly 533 million Facebook users across the internet (Newman, H., L., 2021)”. “The data included are profile names, Facebook ID numbers, email addresses, and phone numbers (Newman, H., L., 2021)”. This information may have been leaked or scraped from other sources such as links that can tie them to victims of tidy profiles to scammers, phishers, and spammers on a serving dish (Newman, H., L., 2021). Making it easy for stalkers to collect valuable information from each user for personal usage and gain in their life and stalking as a daily routine. Although Online lurking can be viewed as public on Public profiles some users may block certain users or deactivate their accounts for safety purposes. These can lead to further cyber crimes if not anticipated correctly and in the right manner, but taking action too soon may be dangerous for the company in user-friendliness data collection, and further usage.  References:Newman, H., L. (2021) “What Really Caused Facebook’s 500M-User Data Leak?” Retrieved from: https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-data-leak-500-million-users-phone-numbers/